


Coffeehouse Cat AU

by kayliemalinza



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Cats, Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, F/M, Gen, Multi, Notfic, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-08
Updated: 2013-04-16
Packaged: 2018-01-19 08:27:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 7,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1462558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kayliemalinza/pseuds/kayliemalinza
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Teaser: </p><p>what if we COMBINE a coffeeshop AU and a cat AU</p><p>and cas is a coffeehouse cat that guards the door on cold winter days and can break glass with his meow</p><p>(dean is the mechanic who comes to fix the A/C and the espresso machines and the crappy old register</p><p>jo is the drifter barista who always needs to switch shifts and has oddly-shaped bruises</p><p>and together</p><p>they love cat?)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Initial short posts

**Author's Note:**

> A collection of fic and notfic from my tumblr. The original masterlist can be found [here](http://kayliemalinza.tumblr.com/post/35784894331/cas-the-coffeehouse-cat-au-masterlist-more). This is my first time trying to archive an AU like this on AO3, so please bear with me. The first chapter consists of the initial, brief brainstorming posts; chapter two is a more lengthy brainstorming. Most of the following chapters are proper fic, until Meg enters the narrative.
> 
> Both "notfic" chapters were still written with an eye to readership, with all the same care applied to imagery, word choice, pacing, etc. as would be in "proper" fic. "Notfic" refers to a stylistic choice and a culture-specific format. As with all non-traditional works, YMMV.

what if we COMBINE a coffeeshop AU and a cat AU

and cas is a coffeehouse cat that guards the door on cold winter days and can break glass with his meow

(dean is the mechanic who comes to fix the A/C and the espresso machines and the crappy old register

jo is the drifter barista who always needs to switch shifts and has oddly-shaped bruises

and together

they love cat?)

# victor henriksen rolls in all hardass and constantly complains about the cat and threatens to report them for healthcode violations # but he kEePs CoMiNg BaCk??? # Anna is the owner # Anna is the only person who can pick up the cat # THE CAT IS VERY HEAVY # IT DEFIES THE LAWS OF PHYSICS # Sam likes to camp out in the corner with a stack of law books # good college boy so happy yay dean is so proud!!! # jo likes to lean against the counter chewing bubblegum and watching dean repair things # ‘are you ogling my brother?’ sam asks # ‘yep’ says jo without breaking the staring contest she has going on with dean’s back dimples # ‘can i get a refill on my coffee?’ ‘nope.’

——————-

cat paw at espresso machine

machine break in dramatic fashion

sexy repairman must come immediately

“good cat” says barista

cat suffused with sense of purpose and wellbeing

cat good

# COFFEESHOP OWNER BECOMES SUSPICIOUS

——————-

p.s.

jo and anna hunt together that’s why jo never gets fired for calling in so much!!!

also sweet make-outs

——————-

what if dean trains catstiel

to fetch him tools from his toolbox

an enormous crescent wrench

gripped in those delicate jaws

the metal scored and pocked

by those slender, sharp teeth

——————

what if cas could operate the espresso machine tho

#and by ‘operate’ i mean ‘weaponize’ #ruby takes a mocha to the face #the red splotches across her cheekbones are one thing #the gunk in her hair? manageable #but that was her fAVORITE SHIRT #(she might even be pissed enough to grab her knife and CUT OFF HIS TAIL)

——————

what if when catstiel yawns it sucks all the air out of the room and everyone dies

#though that presumes that the cafe is airtight #which it may be depending on the climate of the city it’s in and how seriously anna takes her weather stripping #if it is airtight then at some point the continued suction from Cas’ mouth and the greater external pressure will cause the windows to shatter inward #so I guess none of the patrons would die from oxygen deprivation #but blood loss due to multiple lacerations is still an option #and their eardrums are probably damaged idk #physics how does it work #how do angelic cats work #maybe i’m just gonna stick this incident in my back pocket #it just may be a plot twist in the future tho


	2. Lengthy Brainstorming

Manul/Pallas cat? yeah, yeah, still with yellow eyes? I guess. 

UNLESSSSSSSS

CAS HAS HIS TRADEMARK ~~BLUES

BUT THERE IS ANOTHER BIG TOMCAT

WITH YELLOW EYES

AND IT SCRATCHES! SAM!! AND AVA!!!

ahahaha and it breaks things and frames Cas for it

Anna gets MIFFED

"bad cat!"

Cas has to go to the vet and he is warily eying the cat carrier and Anna strokes his head and says, “You’re afraid. I was, too.”

BECAUSE ANNA USED TO BE A CAT? I DON’T KNOW? She was a big heavy sharp cat!! BEAUTIFUL LONG FUR!!! and she was transformed into a human SHE CUT OFF HER TAIL TO BECOME HUMAN

BECAUSE OPPOSABLE THUMBS ARE GREAT

And Jo knooooooooowwwwwwws this and sometimes she scritches Anna, soft little scritches on the nape of her neck, and Anna is like, “you suuuuuuuuuuuuck”

(well no because Anna is too ~classy for that

but she does slit her eyes a little

happy and peeved at the same time

IT IS DIFFICULT BEING A HUMAN-CAT COMBINATION OKAY THE BODY LANGUAGE IS ALL OPPOSITE)

sometimes Cas gets into fights with other angel cats and Jo and Dean are like WOW YOU’RE ACTUALLY BLEEDING? WHAT THE FUCK WE THOUGHT YOU WERE INDESTRUCTABLE then cuddles

but uriel cat okay

uriel

is the baddest mother

BIGGER THAN CASTIEL

URIEL CAN HOLD HIM DOWN WITH A SINGLE PAW

AND _LICK HIS HEAD_

"YOU ARE UNCLEAN, BROTHER!"

(so Azazel is a normal housecat I guess, with some special abilities but he is not an ANGEL.

Unless we are going by the fanon that he is a fallen angel? which okay i

if it is for the sake of cats

I can blur the lines between angels and demons a little)

Gabriel breaks shit. like i mean he is just the most awful cat ever and anna usually has to chase him out with a broom or something

you know how cats will weave between your legs like they’re trying to trip you up and CAUSE YOUR DEATH?

yeah

poor dean

it gets a little ridiculous

"I didn’t know a broken mug could sever someone’s jugular like that"

"you’ve got a little wooden stirring stick jutting out of your femoral artery there wow bad luck"

yeah obv this is while Anna is out of town and Cas is at a kennel or something idk

This is when Sam and Dean start to realize why Jo has so many weird shaped bruises and why she’s late for her shift all the time. 

And Sam gets to say, “You shoot Bambi, and things?”

no but like okay, Lindsey? From “Free to Be You and Me?” She’s still a bartender okay right down the road and she pops in and maybe picks up some shifts when the bar gets slow idk i just want her to beeeeeee thereeeeeeeeee because she was so greeeeeeeeeeeat and also i mean HONEY IT IS V. UNFAIR TO YOURSELF TO WORK IN A BAR! so if she’s having a bad week and she’s had to call her sponsor more than she wants to and she needs to be kind to herself she works in the coffeehouse instead.

She met Jo when Jo drifted through town? Jo worked at the bar originally, using the town as a base for her hunting, and of course after like a week she noticed shenanigans at the coffeehouse, and then EXCITING! THINGS! HAPPENED! and she ended up working for Anna AFTER ANNA PATCHED HER WOUNDS??? WHILE JO COMPLAINED ABOUT IT??? and anna is all like “no. be quiet.” and Jo

is quiet

:x

BUT NAW MAN NAW LINDSEY IS GREAT AND SHE PRETENDS SHE DOESN’T KNOW ABOUT ALL THE WEIRD CRAP GOING ON BECAUSE HER LIFE! IS DIFFICULT ENOUGH! AS IT IS

(but of course one night she ends up calling Jo in a panic because there are racoons in her trashcan and she thinks they might be possessed)

(and because this is an SPN coffeehouse/cat AU)

(yes. they are possessed.)

(idk where Ruby is in all this yet but she is ALL up in this and sam/ruby/anna love triangle CHECK IT)


	3. Cas don't give a crap about doors

Okay, so here’s the thing:

Cas don’t give a fuck about doors.

Dean and Sam saw him in the alley, walking the perimeter or transforming cigarette butts into kibble for poor wayward kitten-orphans or marking his territory by rubbing his face against the corners of the building so hard that pieces of brick flake off. They don’t pretend to understand cat business, okay.

(Well, Sam does, because he Reads Stuff on the Internet, and last week he tried to give Dean a whole lecture on feline social behaviors before Dean said, “Holy crap, I don’t care.”)

So Sam and Dean saw Cas outside, then they walked inside (Sam scuttling in kind of side-ways because he’d apparently brought the whole damn law library with him in his backpack) and by the time they reached the counter, Cas was sitting there, right where Dean would’ve leaned to show off his super buff arms and manly hips (Jo hadn’t worked a shift since last Wednesday so she might’ve forgotten.)

"How the hell did you get in here so fast?" Dean asked.

”There’s a cat flap in the kitchen,” Jo said smoothly.

And okay, that’s reasonable enough, because Cas basically lives at the coffeehouse and Anna is really thoughtful about that kind of thing.

And Dean didn’t even think about it that one time he went upstairs to Anna’s apartment to fix her futzy showerhead, because obviously she’d install a catflap in her own home or maybe she leaves the window to the fire escape cracked open, who knows.

Dean still thinks it’s unecessary for Cas to sit there and supervise him the whole time, but apparently (Sam assures him) Supervising the Help is a cat thing, and it’s not like Dean doesn’t have an audience most times he fixes stuff downstairs in the shop, anyway. A couple of times he thought he heard the tinny shutter-click of a cell-phone camera. One of these days he’s gonna steal Jo’s phone out of her criminally tight back pocket and check.

It was definitely weird when Cas showed in the hallway outside Jo’s apartment, lingering outside the door at the exact same time Dean was there to give her the heavy, odd-shaped duffel bag that she left at the coffeehouse after her shift that morning (at least, that’s what Anna said when she asked him to take it over.)

"You brought the cat with you?" Jo said when she answered the door. She was wearing sweatpants and half a t-shirt and her hair was hanging down wet from a shower and Dean almost knelt down in front of her right there, to kiss the whorl of her belly button.

"What? No," said Dean. "I have no idea why he’s here. I don’t even know how he got here. It’s a fifteen minute car ride."

Jo blinked at him, then gave Cas a look that seemed to be—and this makes no sense whatsoever— _scolding_. “There’s a shortcut across the roofs, probably,” she said.

"Uh huh," said Dean. "I didn’t let him in the door, either." Dean knows that for a fact because the door to Jo’s building weighs damn near a hundred pounds and nearly took his heel off, slamming shut so fast after he hauled the duffel bag in.

"There’s a cat flap," said Jo.

Dean would’ve followed that up, maybe by asking why the hell there would be a catflap for an apartment building and whether it’s located in some secret door that’s a little less dangerous, but his mental faculties weren’t at 100% at the time.

You remember the belly button, right?

"Uh, here," said Dean, and handed the duffel over. He worried for a second that Jo was gonna snap in half from the weight of it, but she did this practiced undulation that Dean’s pretty sure he’s seen in a music video and took the bag just fine. Whatever was inside the bag clanked, and sloshed, and there might’ve been some kind of hissing sound, too (hissing like a pressurized can with a leak, not like something living. Hopefully.)

"Well, thanks for bringing my bag over," said Jo. "Bye."

Then, while she was shutting the door, Cas weaved casually past her ankles like he had a frickin’ invitation.

Yeah, that was weird.

Then there was that one time that Dean stopped by the campus to pick up Sam after class. He walked past the library and saw Cas through the window, sitting between the stacks in a square of sunlight. Every strand and tuft of fur was glowing butter-yellow, like a halo, and his fuzzy face was upturned beatifically.

Sam just shrugged it off. “People go in and out of the library all the time,” he said. “Cas probably just slipped in while the door was open.”

"Yeah, and maybe he just slipped onto the cross-town bus, too," said Dean.

Sam gave him a look that Dean didn’t really feel like interpreting right then, and casually changed the subject.

But the final straw was when Dean dove into the front seat of his car, rainwater splattering from his hair and upturned jacket collar, and looked in the rearview mirror to see Cas meatloafing in the backseat, dry as anything.

"THERE’S NO DAMN CATFLAP IN MY CAR," Dean bellowed.

Cas just slit his eyes in a smug cat smile.


	4. Date Night

Dean and Jo go on a date. They’ve known each other for a while but just started dating officially, so everything’s kinda old and new at once. This is after the whole thing with the possessed raccoons (poor Lindsay; her back porch will never be the same,) so Dean has mostly come around to the idea that there’s Something Out There but he doesn’t know how involved Jo is. She keeps the lights off. He hasn’t seen the scars.

Dean knows that Cas is special, though. Anna explained enough to make him happy and then raised her eyebrow enough to keep him quiet.

So Dean and Jo are in the front seat of the Impala, and suddenly the shocks jounce and the backseat tilts way down. Dean glances in the rear-view mirror.

Cas is sitting in the middle of the backseat, the tip of his tail tapping gently (gently because it’s not cracking the leather, or pressing permanent hollows into the cushion, or breaking stitches with each blow.)

"Uh, buddy?" says Dean. "You’re not invited."

Cas doesn’t move. Dean and Jo exchange glances. Jo looks back. “Cas, baby, I’m just going out for a little bit. You have to stay and guard the cafe, alright? Make sure Anna’s got everything covered.” Like Cas can jump on the espresso machine and whip up a few lattes when the line gets long. Okay, maybe Jo meant “protect her from burglars” but after seeing Anna take out those glowy-eyed raccoons, Dean’s not so sure she needs that kind of help, either.

Cas lowers his front half and meatloafs. He’s being very considerate, all things considered. He’s barely denting the seat. The back chassis is still riding a little low, but as long as they don’t hit any dips in the road they should be okay. If Baby’s bumper gets scratched up because Cas is a fatass, there will be words.

Dean sighs. “Okay, but you can’t come in the restaurant. Henrikson’s right. There are regulations.”

Cas curls his tail tightly around himself and tucks the end of it primly beneath his chin.

"And you better buckle up. Spiritually, or whatever," mutters Dean as he cranks the engine. "I don’t want you flying into the front seat just because I hit a red light."

"I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t hurt him anyway," says Jo.

"If he cracks the windshield, I’ll hurt him,” says Dean, then sulks because Jo didn’t need to laugh that loudly about it, what the hell.

Despite the complications, it’s a nice date. The restaurant is loud with good food and not a lot of frou-frou. They end up in a table by the window and there’s a good sightline to the car, gold and black beneath the street light. Purely by coincidence. Probably. Dean doesn’t know whether to suspect Cas of mind control or assume that Jo bribed the hostess. Either way, he feels justified in eating the last potato skin.

They bring Cas out a doggy bag from the restaurant: two cheeseburgers, medium rare. He eats them on the hood, while Dean and Jo lay across it looking up at the stars. Yep. Stars. Stars are great. Okay, so Dean isn’t that into astronomy, but it’s not a really good time to make a move with a cat eating two feet from you. The crinkling of wax paper, wow, that’s straight-up “Ready for Love” by Bad Company levels of romantic soundtrack, and what the hell is he hiding in that fuzzy mouth of his, a blender? Then Cas does that thing where he snarfs a whole chunk of food into his mouth and gaks on it with his back teeth, and that’s totally attractive. There’s also the smell of beef and ketchup perfuming the air, but to be honest Dean kind of enjoys that.

Still, it’s pretty cozy with Jo all slim and curled up between two manly studs. Her head fits perfectly beneath Dean’s chin.

Cas licks his paws clean and climbs onto their laps. He’s a pretty good space heater, and keeps their hands warm better than mittens. (“Mittens” meaning knitted gloves, not the cat down the street, who is way too small to keep four whole hands warm, though she is—no offense—much prettier than Cas is. It’s the stripes, okay? And the big, round green eyes, and how she’s a totally normal cat who doesn’t understand human speech, and you can lift her up with one hand, and even when she scratches you it’s merely annoying instead of fatal.)

Jo uncurls Cas with a single fingernail—a sly and dastardly plan that starts off with a tickle behind the ear, then a stroke between his shoulder blades, a brief teasing foray to twirl the fluff of his tummy, a saucy squeeze of each paw, a thorough chest-scritch, and the _coup de grace_ : a brutal rub up the whole length of his throat and to the round, whiskered tip of his chin.

Cas splays out like a jasmine vine uncurling with the sunrise. He stretches clear across both their laps, arching to keep his chin in Jo’s reach, and wrapping his tail around Dean’s wrist like a really horrible anime version of furry handcuffs. He’s purring as loud and pretty as the Impala (just don’t tell Baby.)

"This is nice," Jo murmurs, and lifts her head to kiss the corner of Dean’s mouth.

"How come you never pet me like that?" Dean asks, quiet and hot against her lips.

Jo giggles. Dean pretends his hasn’t sunk his entire hand into Cas’ belly fur.


	5. Jo vs. Henriksen

This happens pretty early on, before the thing with the raccoons, back when Jo still figured it was stupid to even think about dating a civilian.

Henriksen’s at the counter ordering a chai latte (because he’s already had six cups of bad government coffee today and he needs a palate cleanser and he likes a bit of spice) when Dean saunters up. He’s glistening with sweat and smells like dark roast and maybe a little bit like dust because let’s be honest, Jo doesn’t sweep under the counters no matter how many times Anna tells her to. There’s also an artful smear of engine grease below his left cheekbone that Dean may or may not have put there on purpose.

Okay, truth time: he did put it there on purpose, but only because the original accidental smear was cruelly licked off by a certain cat with a tongue like steel wool. Dean looked like he lost a fight with a cheese grater. There’s also a dainty round bruise on his shoulder from where Cas held him down with one paw, but it’s covered up by Dean’s t-shirt and thus not relevant to the artful grease smear. It was, however, extremely relevant to Dean’s cries for help ten minutes ago. “Sorry, I couldn’t hear you over the sound of the espresso machine” is—well, okay, it’s a good excuse because those things are fucking loud—but Dean’s still pretty sure that Jo and the cat are in cahoots.

That’s where the sauntering comes in, right? Payback.

Dean saunters up to the counter, glistening and aromatic as aforementioned, and without all the bullshit sexism and internalized homophobia from canon. He props an elbow up on the register (because Jo hates that) and asks Henriksen, “You ever slap your handcuffs on somebody just for fun?” Then he grins wide and saucy, just in case anyone missed the innuendo.

 

Henriksen grins right back because maybe he didn’t choose an apartment two blocks from a BDSM club on purpose, but it sure comes in handy after a stressful day chasing criminals. Repetitive physical activity really helps his thought process, okay? There’s a reason Henriksen has the best track record in his department. “Why, you know someone who needs to be restrained?” he asks.

Jo squawks and explodes into a million tiny feathers.

Okay, not really, but if she did they would be gorgeous feathers, shiny and blonde and skittering on air currents and whipping themselves up into a miniature tornado that would knock over the half-and-half pitcher and sends sugar packets flying everywhere. You can see how exploding into a million feathers would be very inconvenient for all the employees and patrons of the coffeehouse, and perhaps this is why Jo restrained herself.

She does squawk, though.

Then she collects herself—figuratively, not literally; she didn’t actually explode into feathers, remember, and therefore there’s no need for anyone to get out a broom—and says, “That sounds really uncomfortable. If you really want to have fun, you should pick up some conditioned rope.”

"Or maybe," says Henriksen, possibly puffing up like a rooster (to be fair, Jo started the bird theme; you can’t blame Cas this time because he is a CAT,) "you could just wrap some bandages around his wrist before you cuff him. Definitely less complicated."

Dean, by this point, is realizing the error of his ways, but it’s a toss-up as to whether or not he’s regretting anything.

"Some people like to take their time and do it right," says Jo. "But I guess if you’re only going to last two minutes anyway—"

"I know you didn’t just say that," Henriksen snaps. "I know you did not.”

Jo gives him the prim, satisfied smile that used to make her mother slap her.

"Aight, fine," says Henriksen. "I’ll give you rope. I’m sure it’s real handy for keeping your partners in one place. I mean, it’s not like—" he chuckles. "It’s not like you can hold them down, little girl."

Dean is a little busy processing the image of Henriksen holding him down (which is surprisingly difficult because his fantasy-Henriksen keeps morphing into Cas, and seriously, the most action he’s gotten lately has been from a goddamn cat. No wonder Dean’s been sauntering recklessly and fomenting discord.) Anyway, he’s so busy dry-humping an imaginary cat-man that he almost misses it when Jo vaults across the counter and tackles Henriksen to the floor.

Okay, so she doesn’t really do that, because that’d be almost as inconvenient as the feather tornado and she’s a goddamn professional (which is another way of saying that she’s pretty sure Anna will fire her for attacking a law enforcement officer. Possibly with literal fire.) But take it as read that, if Jo and Henriksen did get into a brawl in the middle of a coffeehouse, it would be pretty great, and Henriksen would be very surprised when he doesn’t immediately win. Dean would not be surprised, because he saw Jo beat the crap out a mugger in the alley last week. (Who the hell tries to mug a lady when she’s putting trash in the dumpster?)

What Jo really does is sniff, hitch her shoulder, and disappear down the counter to make the worst chai latte she’s capable of. Henriksen slips Dean his business card.

(Needless to say, when Jo gets jinxed a few months later by a magical amulet that gives her super strength, the first thing she does is break into Henriksen’s apartment. Details to follow.)


	6. Jo shoots an intruder

Jo drags ass into her apartment late one night, holding her jacket to the slit in her side. It’s a shallow wound embellished with little curls of top-layer skin. She stands in front of the mirror in the bathroom and picks out all the barbs. They’re bright blue, translucent, hooked and dainty when she holds them up to the light. Jo drops them all into an empty prescription bottle. Maybe she can turn them into a necklace or something.

She tosses the jacket into the bathtub and runs cold water over it. It runs in red streaks down to the drain, mixing with the gray soap scum and the rust stains. Her cellphone rings, but it’s wedged beneath a pipe three miles from here, so Jo doesn’t hear it. She never even hooked up the landline. She checks her email at the coffeehouse because Anna finally sprung for the free wi-fi. Technically Jo has a TV, but she hollowed it out months ago to hide her knives and things like prescription bottles full of mermaid bits.

Jo tapes herself up, butterfly closures and strips of gauze and globs of a Neosporin/witches’ brew mixture of her own invention. She fishes her jacket out of the tub with a broom handle because it hurts too much to bend down. Then she goes to bed.

She wakes up three hours later because there’s a noise in her apartment. Someone picking through the living room, brushing past stacks of books and papers, clacking the various debris that litters the scratched-up hardwood floors. The pile of take-out boxes is a security measure, see?

Jo wakes up with her blood spitting and her eyeballs throbbing in their sockets. She’s got her gun before she thinks about it, cold under the pillow, stern and comforting in the palm of her hand. The cut is burning. She’s sweating. The sheets are trying to strangle her and there’s a monster in her apartment.

Jo clocks the movement of whoever it is: the creak outside the bathroom, the whisper of her bedroom door sliding open. The monster must be a grade-A perv because it sits on the bed.

So Jo shoots it.

Three quick _blams_ , barely touched by the silencer, then the most horrific screech Jo has ever heard—and she’s heard a lot. The weight leaps off the bed right quick and thumps to the floor. Jo hopes it doesn’t bleed acidic goo or something like that. Her best pair of boots is lying over there.

"Got you, you son of a bitch!" she snarls.

The only answer is a single aggravated “meow.”

_Oh FUCK._

* * *

"Maybe he shouldn’t have been breaking into my apartment," Jo says. "I mean, I’m sorry I shot your cat and all, but I’m just saying."

"I tried to call ahead," Anna says. "We got worried when you didn’t pick up."

Jo shrugs. “It’s just a scratch,” she says. Her shirt’s bloody from jumping out of bed like that but just a little, like someone drew on her with a gunked-up pen. “I can handle myself, you know.”

"I know," says Anna. She kneels beside Jo’s bed, one hand steadying herself on the naked mattress and the other hand on the floor. Jo tried to wipe up the blood but there’s still a bunch drying crusty in the hardwood grooves. Cas bleeds dark and iridescent at the same time and it’s actually kinda neat-looking, you know? Like the fancy fabric in a prom dress. Too bad it smells like Pine-Sol.

Anna crouches low to peer under the bed. Jo hopes there isn’t any dirty underwear under there.

"Come on out, sweetie," Anna says.

Cas’ responding growl rattles through the floorboards. A pile of pizza boxes falls over and the radio spits out static. Jo can feel it through the soles of her feet.

"I know," Anna croons. "I know it hurts, Cas, but you have to come out so I can help you."

Some Metallica seeps in with the static. The vibrations go right to the cut on her belly. Jo really hopes she’s not gonna throw up because that’ll exert way too many stomach muscles and hurt like a bitch.

"Is he—" Jo licks her lips and tosses her hair back, just to remind herself that she’s tough and hard and doesn’t give a crap. "He’s gonna be okay, right?"

Anna glances up and smiles like she’s an old lady pouring tea. “One little bullet isn’t going to stop Cas,” she says.

"Good," says Jo. She crosses her arms. "Hear that, Cas? You’re fine. Stop being a pussy and get out here."

The radio suddenly blares that whiny emo crap Jo hates.

"You’re a fucking brat," she snaps.

"Maybe you should wait in the other room," Anna says.

* * *

Jo ends up taking a walk across the street to the burger joint. Maybe she should’ve gotten dressed but hey, it’s not like this is the first time they’ve served somebody in boxer shorts and biker boots.

Anna is sitting cross-legged on the sofa when Jo gets back, with a dark-shiny stain all down the front of her shirt and Cas belly-up her arms. His fur is wet and sticks out in criss-cross tufts but there’s no gaping hole that Jo can see. The shot glass on the coffee table has a bullet in it.

"Oh. We’re good?" Jo asks.

Anna nods. Cas pointedly lifts his chin and turns away, like Jo is stale kibble.

"I, uh." Jo shuffles up to the couch, sighs, and digs into the paper bag she’s holding. "I got you a damn cheeseburger," she says. She holds it out, straight-armed.

After a long moment, Cas (still not looking at her, the little bitch) reaches out one paw, gleaming claws extended, and gently pulls the foil-wrapped burger into his four-legged embrace. He holds it like a baby and Anna’s holding him like a baby and it’s like a set of nesting dolls. Jo’s life is weird.

"Thank you," says Anna, smiling that old lady smile again.

"Yeah, whatever. Close the door when you leave," Jo says, and stomps off to finally get some sleep.


	7. The Winchester Childhoods

John dies. I’m not sure how—if it’s the nursery fire, then that implies that Azazel’s collecting special children in this AU, and that Sam is meant to be Lucifer’s vessel, and the Apocalypse is on track—but the whole vessel thing is a little undercut by, you know, angels appearing in the form of CATS so maybe things aren’t gonna be that dire after all. Maybe Lucifer’s gonna spring out of the Cage and spray all of Detroit with foul-smelling urine. Michael’s destroyed twelve sequoia trees sharpening his claws for the big fight. Who knows. Let’s stick a pin in that and come back to it later.

The point is, John dies when Sam and Dean are pretty young, probably because of some supernatural beastie, and Mary has to hold onto the rest of her apple-pie life with tooth and nail.

Her parents had some semblance of a normal life—well, they had a house, a child, and a marriage certificate—so Mary’s seen how to balance hunting with raising kids and she’s knows it from both sides. It’s a little harder to do this as a single parent with two kids than as two parents with one kid, and it’d be easier if Mary didn’t keep her hunting a secret from Sam and Dean, but Mary swore that she wouldn’t raise her children in the life and she will burn the flesh from her bones before she breaks that promise. She’ll get the thing that got John, and that’s it.

It takes her six months and eight cross-country trips before she gets the thing—and maybe a few dozen other things along the way. She’s rusty, but she’s not green. It would’ve been more than a few dozen, but she passed by a few monsters without striking. Watched them go to their mailbox in the morning. Watched them choke down sheep’s blood or raw beef or sneak out the back doors of funeral homes. She sat in John’s car and tried to convince herself that more death would fix things, and her hand fell open on the seat like it was his wrist in her palm, instead of a gun.

"John’s a very nice, naive civilian," her father said.

Rest his soul, Daddy was a dumbass sometimes. Who had the higher kill count: Corporal Winchester, or little Mary Campbell? Mary carefully never found out.

She wondered what John would’ve done, if he discovered the secret in her blood and behind her eyes, the reason for the taut curve of her shoulders and the callouses he liked to kiss. If her mother were alive, she could ask: _What did Daddy do when you rescued him for the first time, in that cozy patch of woods just off campus where shifters liked to roam? When you held up a warm heart, blood mixing, and said, “You’re welcome?” Did your name change shape in his mouth?_

Mary doesn’t know what John would do if he found out; if he’d hate her for killing or forgive her for lying. If he’d leave. If he’d offer to help. She mentioned once that she used to go to the skeet range with her dad and John pulled her down, rubbed his hot palms across the small of her back, and said, “Do you miss it?”

She did, with a sudden dark fierceness, and the thought of hunting with John made her press her teeth into his lip and sob with joy. They went skeet-shooting together, and every shattered clay bird made him shine his eyes at her, loving and deliciously wary. Maybe John didn’t know all the details, but he was no fool. He knew who he married.

It’s lucky she didn’t realize that until after John died. Somewhere between Arkansas and Arizona, Mary comes to peace with the fact that her idea of love is cleaning guns together at the kitchen table. It’s imprinted on her. And she’s glad she never had the chance to pull John into this muck. She couldn’t have resisted the temptation, and her babies would be imprinted, too.

So she hunts alone, and comes home to children who worry about tender, silly things.

Mary keeps her boys in a house as long as she can. She tries not to hunt that much, but she still has contacts from the old days; aging blowhards who remember her as Samuel’s little girl, and new buddies she’s picked up along the way. She gets a second landline for the house, one that Sam and Dean aren’t allowed to answer. She gets newspaper subscriptions from all over: the national rags, the competing papers from big cities on both coasts, the tiny papers from little towns with unfortunate hotspots.

Dean remembers all those papers spread out on the kitchen table every morning, huge stacks of them yellowing by the back door, and the careful clippings sorted into an accordion folder with handwritten notes he’s not allowed to look at.

Sometimes she leaves town. The boys have a whole slew of nannies, and even more who applied for the job but didn’t pass Mary’s background check. A lot of them only last a few nights before Mary finds something suspicious or they yell at Dean a little too loudly or maybe Dean lies and says they were mean because if there’s no babysitter, then Mary can’t leave.

Then it doesn’t matter because he’s finally old enough to be in charge. Old enough to wear a key on a string around his neck. Old enough to cook dinner and make sure Sammy gets his homework done.

They move a couple of times. Mary doesn’t make them live out of motel rooms, but they couldn’t stay in Lawrence forever. Too small. Too much talk.

They live in apartments, in shotgun shacks, in trim suburbia when times are flush. Sometimes they go “camping” in cabins with iron door handles and a cage in the basement. Mary keeps them in the same place for the whole school year as much as she can, but they go on a road trip every summer.

In this universe, Dean’s seen the Grand Canyon twelve times.

Then one winter, when Dean is fourteen and Sam is ten, Mary doesn’t come home for three months. Dean keeps it together. They go to school, they do the grocery shopping, they behave themselves better than most kids with two parents. But they can’t hide it forever. Teachers want report cards signed, or a parent-teacher conference about putting Sam in the advanced English class, or to ask why Dean is making B’s and C’s when he could be making A’s (Dean was crushing so hard on Ms. Johnson and her teardrop tits, but he will never forgive her for that, never forgive her for asking too many questions and voicing concerns to too many people.) And suddenly the neighbors are dropping by, and the principal is calling, and the cops do a drive-by while Dean is outside raking leaves.

Maybe they would’ve been okay if the check for the water bill hadn’t bounced. If Dean had walked the extra half-mile to a different grocery store a little more often, a big chain supermarket where they didn’t know who his mother was and didn’t wonder why she wasn’t with him. But maybe doesn’t mean much.

One morning a nice lady from CPS knocks on the door.

They go into the system. There’s a couple of bad nights in a group home, with Sam cross-legged on a squeaky cot with a beat-up paperback clutched to his chest, glancing around all squirrely and soft like he’s only keeping it together because Dean’s keeping it together. Dean’s keeping it together because he has to. That’s his job. He does whatever Sammy needs him to.

The foster home isn’t bad. The hallway carpet smells like old milk and their foster mom watches too much _Dynasty_ , but Sam and Dean get to share a bedroom and there’s lasagna twice a week. The CPS lady stops by on the regular and gives good hugs.

Mary comes back finally, with a cast on her left arm and a scar hidden beneath her hair. She burns rubber getting to the CPS offices. They’re straight-mouthed and hard-eyed and spit out legal terms like “criminal negligence.” One of the secretaries, a recent transplant from St. Louis, watches Mary with her mouth open. She plucks her boss’s sleeve. They go into the back room, where there’s a telephone.

Mary leaves. She’s seen her face on enough TV screens and security camera print-outs to know what’s happening.

So she has to be sneaky, but she’s not leaving her boys. Mary sets herself up in the next town over—someplace nice and big and anonymous, with landlords who don’t care and cops who are always willing to give a pretty white lady a pass. She boosts or borrows inconspicuous cars and drives over to see her boys.

She walks them home from school where their teachers can’t see. She takes them to the movies when their foster parents think they’re at the library, and sometimes she takes them to the library when they’re supposed to be at the movies. She listens to Sam read his favorite bits from _Animorphs_ and she loops her arm around Dean’s shoulders, leads him gently a shelf of Vonnegut. She buys them new shoes for school. She shows up for Sam’s soccer games and lurks under the stands, out of sight. She listens for Dean bellowing his brother’s name and wanders over there, waiting for him to glance down between the slats and smile.

Sometimes she takes them out for ice cream and they have to leave before they’re done. Sometimes the library’s too public or they take so many detours around crowded intersections that they’re late for the movie. Sometimes she doesn’t come by for months. But even then, she sends letters and gifts to a secret P.O. box and makes sure there are always at least three phone numbers Dean can use to reach her, if something happens. 

Guys in suits come around to the foster home, or pull Sam and Dean out of class. They ask questions about guns, the second landline, the bags of salt in the basement of their old house. They ask if Dean can name any of his mother’s friends (accomplices.) Dean learned to play dumb when he hit his middle school growth spurt, and now he turns it into an art. Sammy used to talk to everyone, but now he clams up tight. Even when the guys in suits put them in separate rooms, Dean knows Sam is solid. He’s really grown up a lot these last couple of years.

"But Dean, what if—" says Sam, when he’s been over to a friend’s house (a house with a garden and two parents and no monthly check-ups) or watched too much white-bread TV or gotten chummy with the case worker.

"Sammy, whatever they think Mom did, they’re wrong. She’s not like that," Dean says. "Mom’s a hero."

He says that to a cop once, and the cop pats him on the shoulder, saying, “Maybe you don’t know her as well as you think, son.”

"I’m not your son," Dean snaps. He does that a lot. His case worker says he’s being difficult.

One day, Mary’s supposed to meet him and Sammy for a picnic in the park. Dean shows up alone, collar turned up and hands in his pockets.

"Baby, what’s wrong?" says Mary. She tries to lay her hand on his cheek, stroke her thumb across the stubble that’s just started growing in, but Dean jerks away.

"You can’t come see us anymore," he says, and his heart is crumpling up but it’s not breaking. "It’s too dangerous. What if they find you because you keep coming back here? What if you get arrested and it’s my fault?"

(I never wanted this for you.)

I know you love us.

(I want you to be safe.)

It’s okay. I’ll take care of Sammy.

(Dean, sweetheart….)

Mom, please.

So Mary holds his face in her hands and she loves him and she promises what he needs her to promise and

she disappears, absent and mythic and pure.

.  
.  
.

The Impala shows up three days later at the end of the block

with the keys in the door and a pie in the backseat.

(What?

You thought Mary Campbell was gonna leave her kids without a thing to call home?)


	8. Meg the Baker

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter includes collaborations from tumblr user Femchef. Meg as a baker was her suggestion, first presented in [this post](http://kayliemalinza.tumblr.com/post/48099032173/megxbakery-au-thoughts-from-a-baker). All her contributions are inside double brackets: [[ x ]]

okay so my vague thought here is that anna decides to expand the coffeehouse and idk maybe the building next door goes on the market suddenly so she can rent the bottom floor (or maybe a floor up? yes i like that because anna lives above the shop so meg can spend half her baker days trying to peer through anna’s suspiciously clean curtains)

(suspicious because meg never sees anybody CLEAN them and sometimes, when she’s in there at 3am doing scones or sourdough bread—courtesy of a starter which was lovingly crafted in the bowels of hell some thousand years ago—the windows of anna’s apartment glow.

but i’m getting ahead of myself)

anna rents the space on the second floor and maybe it was set up as a bakery already, idk, and she hires meg because her chocolate cake is

heh heh heh

_to die for_

(cas is a goddamn cat and even he knows that’s a tired pun)

yeah okay and of course it takes less than a week for meg to bribe cas into complete docility

like some days he just languishes on the fire escape outside the bakery

waiting for her to toss him some sticky morsel

it’s pathetic

(dean and jo are hella cranky)

——————-

femchef replied to your post: 

[[::Cries happy tears:: you know sourdough is fun, you let it sit for 18 hours or so and it gets weird and bubbly and its just this strange odorous mass that when you get close to it YOU CAN FEEL the wet warmth like its breathing on your face]]

“That loaf is named Cyrus,” Meg says.

“Why’d you name it Cyrus?” Dean asks.

“I didn’t,” Meg says, and smiles.

———————-

[Soursoul Bread](http://kayliemalinza.tumblr.com/post/48102622874/femchef-oh-my-gawd-and-think-about-what-a) (guest post by [tumblr user Femchef](femchef.tumblr.com))

[[Oh my GAWD and think about what a great, tortuous existence it would be, if Meg were to bake souls from hell into her bread?! Like, she’s taking the soul out of hell, possibly luring them into a false sense of hope that after eons of torture they thought (if they’re even able to be conscious, and really it would be less fun if they weren’t so) they couldn’t fall back on, and she gives them a kind of simple life as yeast dough and then beats and kneads them into a shape (torture), eventually baking them (so a return to hell) and then, ultimately, they are eaten (so another death?), and fuck that just makes her the best demon!]]

———————-

femchef:

[[Sometimes when people (but mostly dean because he is the most fun) are talking to Meg while she’s working they suddenly realize that she just took the hot baking sheet out of the oven with bare hands, or they think that’s what they saw and it freaks them (most dean) out a little.]]

YES

and omg what if cascat is like cccat and he likes being petted v rough and meg and anna are the only ones strong enough to do it right and so meg squeEZES HIM LIKE A TRASH COMPACTOR and cas purrrrrrrrrrs

and dean runs up from the coffeeshop trying to save meg bc he thought it was an earthquake

———————

also, meg skritches cas’ belly with a bigass knife :)

———————

when meg keeps slipping cas scraps from her bakery he starts getting bigger and bigger but he doesn’t become round (well, not *more* round) he’s all solid and staticky and dense and he’s bigger than the register and the customers are starting to notice and even anna has trouble picking him up now

with every bite of soursoul bread castiel becomes more powerful

pretty sure meg’s endgame is to send her loyal fuzzy godzilla on a rampage and take over the world

——————-

[Circe](http://kayliemalinza.tumblr.com/post/66067602405/so-one-night-meg-the-baker-stuff) (guest post by [tumblr user Femchef](femchef.tumblr.com))

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [So One Night... [Meg the Baker]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6403570) by [biscuit_tin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/biscuit_tin/pseuds/biscuit_tin)




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